Sponsoring an open source contributor

About sponsorships

You can sponsor anyone with a sponsored developer profile or sponsored organization profile on behalf of your personal account or an organization. You can choose from multiple sponsorship tiers, with one-time or monthly payment amounts and benefits that are set by the sponsored account. Your sponsorship will share your account’s existing billing date, payment method, and receipt.

You can sponsor an account on behalf of your personal account to invest in projects that you personally benefit from. You can sponsor an account on behalf of your organization for many reasons.

• Sustaining specific libraries that your organization's work depends on
• Investing in the ecosystem you rely on as an organization (such as blockchain)
• Developing brand awareness as an organization that values open source
• Thanking open source developers for building libraries that complement the product your organization offers

You can use a credit card to sponsor an account on GitHub. Organizations can also pay by invoice. For more information, see "Paying for GitHub Sponsors by invoice."

GitHub Sponsors does not charge any fees for sponsorships from personal accounts, so 100% of these sponsorships go to the sponsored developer or organization. GitHub Sponsors charges a fee of up to 6% for sponsorships from organization accounts. The 6% fee is split between the following:

• 3% credit card processing fee
• 3% GitHub service processing fee

Organizations can save the 3% credit card processing fee by switching to invoiced billing for sponsorships. For more information, see "Paying for GitHub Sponsors by invoice." For more information, see "About billing for GitHub Sponsors."

When you sponsor an account using a credit card, the change will become effective immediately. If you're starting a monthly sponsorship on behalf of your personal account, you'll immediately be charged a prorated amount for the time until your next regular billing date. If you're sponsoring on behalf of an organization, you can choose to pay the prorated amount or make the full monthly payment.

We may share certain limited tax information with sponsored accounts. For more information, see "Tax information."

You can designate which email address receives updates from the accounts your organization sponsors. For more information, see "Managing updates from accounts your organization sponsors."

You can choose whether to display your sponsorship publicly. One-time sponsorships remain visible for one month.

If the sponsored account retires your tier, the tier will remain in place for you until you choose a different tier or cancel your subscription. For more information, see "Upgrading a sponsorship" and "Downgrading a sponsorship."

If the account you want to sponsor does not have a profile on GitHub Sponsors, you can encourage the account to join. For more information, see "Setting up GitHub Sponsors for your personal account" and "Setting up GitHub Sponsors for your organization."

Sponsorships are generally not tax deductible but can be in some cases. It's the responsibility of the sponsored open source contributor—not GitHub—to inform sponsors whether the contributions are being made to a tax-exempt entity like a 501(c)(3), and if the sponsorships may be tax-deductible.

Sponsorship fees

GitHub Sponsors does not charge any fees for sponsorships from personal accounts, so 100% of these sponsorships go to the sponsored developer or organization. GitHub Sponsors charges a fee of up to 6% for sponsorships from organization accounts. The 6% fee is split between the following:

• 3% credit card processing fee
• 3% GitHub service processing fee

Organizations can save the 3% credit card processing fee by switching to invoiced billing for sponsorships. For more information, see "Paying for GitHub Sponsors by invoice."

Tax information

As a sponsor, you acknowledge that we may disclose to the owner of each account you sponsor the following limited information about your sponsorship payments to the account, since the inception of the Sponsors Program:

• Transaction date
• Amount paid
• The country, state, and province from where payment was made
• Whether payment was made by a business or individual

This information is necessary to enable payment and reporting of any taxes arising from such sponsorship payments.

Sponsoring an account

Before you can sponsor an account, you must have a verified email address. For more information, see "Verifying your email address."

1. On GitHub, navigate to the profile of the user or organization you want to sponsor.

2. Navigate to your sponsorship dashboard for the account.

   • To sponsor a developer, under the developer's name, click Sponsor.

     

   • To sponsor an organization, to the right of the organization's name, click Sponsor.

3. Optionally, on the right side of the page, to sponsor the account on behalf of your organization, use the Sponsor as drop-down menu, and click the organization.

4. To the right of the tier you want, click Select.

   Alternatively, if you want to select a custom amount, enter the sponsorship amount in the text field provided, then click Select.

5. Optionally, if you're sponsoring as an organization in the middle of a billing cycle, to make the full monthly payment instead of paying a prorated amount, click pay the full amount.

   

6. In the "Billing information" and "Payment method" sections, review your payment details.

   Optionally, to change the payment details for your entire account on GitHub.com, in the "Payment method" section, click Edit. Then, follow the prompts to complete the payment form.

7. Choose who can see your sponsorship.

8. Decide whether you want to receive email updates from the sponsored account, then select or deselect Receive email updates from ACCOUNT.

   Note: If your organization chooses to receive email updates from sponsored accounts, you can select a specific email address to receive those emails. For more information, see "Managing updates from accounts your organization sponsors."

9. If you are sponsoring an account as a business, click Yes. Filling out the related fields will help your sponsored accounts calculate and pay taxes where appropriate. For more information, see "Tax information for GitHub Sponsors."

   • Select the "Country" dropdown menu, then click your business' country.
   • Next, select the "Region" dropdown menu and click your business' region within your country.
   • If applicable, click the "VAT number" text field, then type your value-added tax (VAT) identification number.

   

10. Review the information about the charge and your billing date, then click Sponsor ACCOUNT.

Sponsoring accounts in bulk

1. Go to https://github.com/sponsors/explore.

2. Optionally, if you are a member of an organization, to see the maintainers of your organization's dependencies, select your organization from the "Explore as" section of the upper-left sidebar.

   If you are a member of multiple organizations, to see all of your organizations, click See more .

3. Optionally, to download a CSV file of developers who maintain your account's or organization's dependencies, click results as CSV.

   

   To sponsor these maintainers using the downloaded file, in the corresponding cells of the "Sponsorship amount in USD" column, input sponsorship amounts in US dollars for each maintainer you want to sponsor.

4. On GitHub, in the "Bulk Sponsor" box above the list of developers who maintain your dependencies, click Get started.

5. Optionally, to change which account or organization you are sponsoring as, select the Sponsor as USERNAME dropdown menu, then click the desired account or organization from the options that appear.

   

6. To upload the CSV file of accounts you would like to sponsor, in the "Import a CSV" section, click Choose your file, then navigate to the CSV file you would like to upload. Select the CSV file, then click Open.

   Alternatively, drag and drop your CSV file into the "Import a CSV" box.

   You can sponsor in bulk with any of the following files:

   • The previously mentioned CSV file of developers who maintain your account's or organization's dependencies.
   • GitHub's template CSV file for bulk sponsorships edited to contain your desired sponsorships. To download the example CSV file, in the "Import a CSV" box, click Download example CSV.
   • A CSV file of your own creation containing your desired sponsorships. For GitHub to parse your CSV file correctly, the file must contain columns labeled "Maintainer username" and "Sponsorship amount in USD."

   Note: Any errors in your file are reported at the top of the review page with instructions to resolve them.

7. Optionally, to resolve any errors or make any changes to your sponsorship selections, click Choose file, then navigate to the new or updated CSV file you would like to upload. Select the CSV file, then click Open.

8. To confirm your sponsorship elections, click Continue to checkout.

9. In the "Billing information" and "Payment method" sections, review your payment details.

   Optionally, to change the payment details for your entire account on GitHub.com, in the "Payment method" section, click Edit. Then, follow the prompts to complete the payment form.

10. In the "Who can see your sponsorships?" section, choose a visibility option.

11. Decide whether you want to receive email updates from the sponsored accounts, then select or deselect Receive email updates from the maintainers you're sponsoring.

    Note: If your organization chooses to receive email updates from sponsored accounts, you can select a specific email address to receive those emails. For more information, see "Managing updates from accounts your organization sponsors."

12. If you are sponsoring an account as a business, click Yes. Filling out the related fields will help your sponsored accounts calculate and pay taxes where appropriate. For more information, see "Tax information for GitHub Sponsors."

    • Select the "Country" dropdown menu, then click your business' country.
    • Next, select the "Region" dropdown menu and click your business' region within your country.
    • If applicable, click the "VAT number" text field, then type your value-added tax (VAT) identification number.

    

13. Review the information about the charge and your billing date, then click Sponsor NUMBER maintainers.